Xìng fú

Wake early, determined. 

Barrel into a day, a week, a month, lead with grit, ignore your knees when they tremble. The sun breaks out, late summer sunlight and you feel happy and sad all at once. He comes to see how you are doing but does not ask, and so you do not say. The dances get stranger with age, I take a long run along the river (it gets dark so early now, it's hard to see your steps, the strangers you meet) and land back at the footbridge in a worn pile but it's better than hearing yourself think. The apartment across the street is still empty. Fall into bed exhausted. One day down, countless to go. The coffee grows tepid if you do not drink it. 

It's me. I'm the coffee. 

But you knew that.